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When their commanders die they use great lamentation; and when they think the flesh of their bodies is putrified and fallen from their bones, then they take up the carcase again and hang it in the cacique's house that died, and deck his skull with feathers of all colours, and hang all his gold plates about the bones of this arms, thighs, and legs.
Upon entering the cacique's inner apartments the Spaniards found a room filled with bodies suspended in cotton ropes. They inquired the motive of this superstitious custom, and were informed that they were the bodies of the ancestors of Comogre, which were preserved with great care, according to the rank they had occupied in life; respect for the dead being part of their religion.
And we must step silently," he adds, pointing to the cacique's scaffold tomb, "lest we disturb the sleep of old Naraguana, up yonder."
On reaching the courtyard of the cacique's house, I found it filled with warriors most gorgeously attired, and among them one more splendid than the rest. He was young, very tall and broad, most handsome in face, and having eyes like those of an eagle, while his whole aspect breathed majesty and command.
It had been found in the courtyard of a cacique's house, where it had lain for a long time, and the old people of the country, although no tin has been found in the island within the memory of any living man, nevertheless knew where there was a mine of this metal. But nobody could ever learn this secret from them, so much were they vexed by the Spaniards' presence.
In response to the petition of the Comendador they left with him a Spaniard, who volunteered for the purpose of teaching the cacique's subjects and their neighbours the Angelic Salutation, their idea being that the more words of the prayer to the Virgin they knew, the better disposed she would be to them. Enciso agreed, after which he resumed his course to Hispaniola, which was not far distant.
Vasco Nuñez habitually encouraged his labourers at their work by frequently visiting them, and the cacique's men had never ventured to execute his orders, because Vasco never went among them except on horseback, and armed.
The next morning the Adelantado, seeing from the nature of the country that it would be impossible to overtake the fugitives, contented himself with carrying off all the coronets, necklaces, and plates of gold found in the cacique's mansion, to the value of three hundred ducats, and got safely on board.
He had no idea that it had belonged to the Cacique's son; all Indians looked very much alike to him. But when the Cacique saw Young Pine's necklace in the Spaniard's hand, he raised the enemy shout that was the signal for his men, who lay in the scrub, to begin the battle. Ayllon struck down the Cacique with his own sword as the nearest at hand.
Eighteen months had elapsed since that time, so they were as naked as the natives, but plump as the capons women fatten in dark places, for they had lived well at the cacique's table during that period; nor did they concern themselves about meum and tuum, or as to who gave and who received, which is the cause of the crimes of violence that shorten human life.
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